Having had the privilege to meet with Professor Swartz, I read his most recent book publication, ‘Able-Bodied – Scenes from a curious life’ with the jovial sounds of his uncanny ability to reflect on human nature and experiences in the background.

I certainly found Professor Swartz’ presence evident in the somewhat apologetic way he introduces and describes his family, as if telling a story and telling a secret amount to a similar thing. Yet, his words behold a compassion and gentleness that even the greatest of sentiments often fail to display.

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“The persevering surgeon” an 18^th century cartoon by Thomas Rowlandson shows a surgeon leering over a dead female body, a sneering smile on his face and her breasts in his fascinated grope. Although this makes uncomfortable viewing, a fascination with the details of human anatomy is something visitors can relate to, as they walk through the Museum of London’s exhibition ‘Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men’.  Intricate sketches, eerie wax models, butterfly wing-thin cross sections of bone and tissue decorate the space, as the creators of the exhibition play up to their visitors’ morbid curiosity. more…

Since Hippocrates in early 5 B.C., Medicine has carried an ‘angel on its shoulder’; a reflexive gaze on the skill, and phenomenologies of healing between the doctor and his patient. Ethics is a code, a practice, and a guide amid the terrain of the hands that tend to the body using instruments of medicine’s enterprise. Referring to the Oath:

‘I will preserve the purity of my life and my arts’.

Daniel Sokol, Honorary Senior Lecturer at Imperial College, London and recently qualified barrister, undertook the challenge of fitting ‘ethics’ into our contemporary medical practice; whereby Medicine is confronted by a body unprecedented in relation to the ways in which we can perceive, examine, intervene, create, and prolong the existence of our bodies; our lives.

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With annual World AIDS Day taking place 1 December, this new Egyptian film, which was shown at the recent London Film Festival, is very topical.

The subject of HIV in European and American cinema has of course been explored in many films (such as “Savage nights” (1992), “Philadelphia” (1993), “The Hours” (2002), and “Angels in America” (2003)). However depictions of HIV positive characters in Arab cinema have been scarce, characteristically portraying HIV patients as promiscuous sinners who deserve to be ill, or else as victims of an American conspiracy to spread HIV infection amongst young people in the Arab world. more…

The Editor’s Choice for the June issue of Medical Humanities is an original article by medical student Jason Leiboqwitz entitled “Moral erosion: how can medical professionals safeguard against the slippery slope?” Following his participation in a Fellowship at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics program, Jason concludes that physicians are as vulnerable to corruption of their guiding principles today as they have ever been, and he poses an important question, asking what, if anything, they can do to stop themselves sliding down their own morally eroded slippery slope.

http://mh.bmj.com/

Do read his article. Its free to download. And then please take part in our online poll about any slippery slopes of your own. As always we’d love to hear you thoughts.

Good medicine is more than a set of technical decisions and interventions involving drugs, operations or tests. It demands more of the practitioner – professionalism, empathetic care, moral consideration, insight, an understanding of human suffering and necessarily, wisdom. These attributes are not always prioritised in selecting for or training healthcare professionals, and there is little time or attention given to their authentic development within busy working environments. Further, there is a widening hiatus of trust, understanding and expectation between medicine and society around what constitutes good medicine. This pressingly requires real engagement around medicine’s role and society’s values. A purely scientific answer will never prove sufficient here.

Medicine Unboxed is a unique project and conference programme that engages both the public and front-line NHS staff with a view of medicine that is infused and elaborated by the humanities. Contributors include artists, writers, the clergy, poets, philosophers, lawyers, linguists, musicians, theatre, ethicists, academics and doctors. The results are thought-provoking, inspiring, sometimes funny and often
moving.

Our theme this year is Medicine and Values.

We think of medicine as simply fact-based, efficient and scientifically robust. These arbiters can become the measures of good medicine. However, medicine is infused with judgments of value – individually for doctors and patients but also in medical science, for society, for policy-makers and health economists. Ethics, law and religion inform duties and rights in medicine, through principles and values. The values that define good medicine are not always apparent or agreed upon and there remains the potential for tension between them.

We’d like to invite you to come along to Medicine Unboxed 2011 and join us in uncovering the values that pertain to medical care and debating the ambivalences around the arbiters of good medicine. Our speakers this year include the Rev. John Bell, John Carey, Lionel Shriver, Jo Shapcott, Ray Tallis, Paul Bailey, Michael
Arditti and Havi Carel.

Come to the debate – be inspired.

Sam Guglani, Consultant Clinical Oncologist.

http://medicineunboxed.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=040c885489432f9ea79fbd23b&id=f00835b9f4&e=1767bdcee5

Care infuses medicine. Well, the word ‘care’ infuses the language of medicine – Healthcare, Intensive Care, Palliative Care, Standard care, Standard of care, Best supportive care, Care Quality Commission. But what actually is medical care? more…

I recently attended the funeral of the local parish priest and this led me to consider many of the similarities between what I do in medicine and the role of the ‘Parish Priest’ as well as the ‘misrepresentation’ of 21^st medicine. I work in intensive care, a setting of immense emotional stress for patients and relatives, and not infrequently for staff as well. Intensive care can appear more like the cockpit of an aeroplane – full of machines that bleep and flash as they keep patients alive. This, however, can belie the true meaning of what we do. There is an evolving mis-interpretation of what medicine is: that good medicine in the 21^st century is skill based technical wizardry, where ‘good’ doctors are people, who can diagnose, treat and cure using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI’s), gene therapy, or laser guided scalpels and the like.

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Perhaps, one form of illness where telling a story of the body is most evident is in respect to mental health.

Yesterday’s ruling by the High Court’s Court of Protection, that a 69 year old lady with severe schizophrenia must receive the medical treatment for a prolapsed womb, which she has been strongly refusing and protesting against, reveals the battle that one person’s voice can hold.

Is it pathology to not fight the presence of pathology in the body?

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The month of Ramadan is drawing to a close. During this time, Muslims from every terrain, from the hottest countries, to the most Westernised societies, have been involved in a shared yet equally an exclusive passage of religious rites.

Ramadan is a unique time in the Islamic year. For a period of one month, the spiritual attire of a pious Muslim is found in the exercise of fasting. With the exception of the sick, a Muslim is forbidden to eat or drink during the hours between sunrise and sundown.

The routine is one that involves the highest degrees of self-discipline and control. Through such rituals, there becomes a higher degree and awareness of spirituality. With the removal of a conscious acknowledgement of bodily needs, there is space for reflection and prayer. However, the object of effect is the human body. Awareness of the soul can be attained only through the regulation of the human body. Thus, there is almost a paradoxical relationship between the body and the soul during fasting.

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